Monday, 23 January 2012

The minister who made the Invisible Visible Man see red

It was the kind of reasoning you’d expect from someone who
has spent so long trying to reconcile competing instincts and priorities that
he’d lost all track of common sense. One summer several years ago, over lunch
with a junior transport minister in the then UK government, I asked about the future
of speed cameras - cameras for catching speeding motorists that his own government’s research showed saved more than a hundred lives every year. Putting
on a serious voice and knitting his brows, the minister – who clearly
disapproved of the official support for the cameras - told me that motorists
were worried about speed cameras’ effectiveness because of the “regression to
mean” effect. The effect describes how part of the fall in accidents at a given
site after a camera’s installation is probably a statistical quirk, rather than
a result of the camera’s presence.

I tried – but didn’t fully succeed – to control my
irritation. I told the minister – forcefully – that in my experience far more
motorists were simply worried about being caught speeding. They didn’t have
intellectual doubts about speed cameras – they just thought they should be
allowed to drive whatever speed they damn well pleased. The minister clearly didn’t
think it was important to enforce speed limits.

Cyclists on Lower Thames Street, London Skyride 2009.
They're their "own worst enemies", according to one minister -
yet they seem oblivious to the danger.

The minister’s understanding for rule-breaking motorists
did not, however, extend to cyclists. I went on to ask what the government was
doing to make roads safer for cyclists. “To be honest,” he replied, “I think
cyclists are their own worst enemies”. I had little doubt I had much, much worse
enemies on the roads than myself – and I had encountered several even during my
short cycle ride to lunch. I nearly – but didn’t quite – follow the inner urge to get
myself out of the presence of someone who thought I wasn’t worth protecting. It
would all have been less alarming if he hadn’t been the road safety minister.

The lunch was the moment when I started to realise how
completely the thinking about road use of most people – even those who devote
their days to deciding on road safety policy – comes from the gut, rather than
the higher brain centres. The minister’s gut wanted to drive fast – I later
discovered he had a number of convictions for speeding – and disliked cyclists.
My gut, clearly, likes cycling and doesn’t care for driving. But I like to
think my frontal cortex at least gets to review the gut’s decisions. I
recognised – I still recognise – that lots of people need to drive, that motor
vehicles are not about to stop being the main means of making most trips in the
UK – or most other parts of the world – and that even the keenest cyclist has
to find some modus vivendi with the dominant road users. It was depressing to
find a government minister relying so thoroughly on the lower reaches of his
abdomen that he was holding two utterly contradictory views.

But anyone who’s spent any significant time cycling anywhere
where cycling is a fringe activity will know that cyclists scratch out feelings from well below some people's civilised veneers. Some motorists’ determination to
get past cyclists just to reach the end of the traffic
jam ahead faster; the curious determination of some pedestrians to step in
front of cyclists even when they can see the cyclist clearly; the
daily battles over precedence in the special boxes for cyclists at traffic
lights: these all betoken a gut distaste for cyclists that doesn’t seem based
on detailed perusal of road casualty rates.

Nevertheless, it is probably worth laying out clearly how
intellectually disreputable the minister’s views were. In 2010, 1,850 people died on the UK’s roads – and only four were killed by cyclists. In each of 2008 and 2009, only a
single pedestrian died after being hit by a bicycle. Cyclists – who account
for just under 2 per cent of traffic but far more in the urban areas where most
accidents occur – consequently were responsible for just 0.22 per cent of 2010’s
road user fatalities. The proportion had been still lower the two preceding
years. Even among pedestrians – the only group of road users that cyclists
seriously threaten – cyclists accounted for fewer than 1 per cent of the 405
killed. Other road users, meanwhile, killed 111 cyclists.

Me in cycling gear: a sight, one reporter says,
that ought to terrify pedestrians. Note to motorist
readers: since you won't be able to see me, I'm near
the picture's middle, wearing high-visibility clothing

These figures, of course, are rather as simple Newtonian
physics would suggest. The energy released when a single cyclist hits a
pedestrian at, say, 15mph and when a car, van or lorry hits a pedestrian at 30mph
are many orders of magnitude different. I can testify to this point
particularly congently after unwillingly conducting my own experiment in early
2009. On February 4, I was knocked off by a glancing blow from a minivan
crossing my path on Brixton Road,
southLondon. On
March 13 the same year, I was hit squarely by a cyclist running a red light
near Elephant & Castle. The minivan incident left me sore for a year – the collision
with the cyclist only a few days. Cyclists running red lights, going the wrong
way up one-way streets and mounting pavements are an irritation – but little
more. Motorists who speed, talk on their telephones, fail to see red lights or
deliberately drive dangerously regularly prove a lethal danger.

Politicians who want to make life safer for pedestrians and
other road users should consequently be encouraging cycling, even if cyclists
continue to run red lights (which I think they shouldn’t) or mount the
occasional pavement. We cyclists represent far less of a danger to other road
users than any other form of wheeled transport.

Yet, when I spoke to Lord Adonis, the then newly-appointed
transport secretary, in mid-2009 along with another transport correspondent,
the other reporter turned beetroot red when I asked about enhancing safety for
cyclists. He interrupted before the minister could answer. “What are you going
to do about aggressive cyclists?” he demanded. “What aggressive cyclists?” I retorted,
pointing out that people perched on metal frames and two wheels were in a weak
position to be truly, dangerously aggressive. My theories about what drives
such anger will have to wait, however, for another post. It will take some
space to explain why some people hate others simply for their choice of
transport mode…

9 comments:

good start to a blog, i shall enjoy reading it in future. My favourite (probably wrong word) type of motorist is the Bus driver, the way they cut you up when pulling over at a stop forcing me out into high speed traffic (or abruptly slamming on the brakes and waiting), always tickles me. I helpfully suggest that by slowing down just a touch they could easily still get there, but alas it seems the 3 seconds they will lose is more important than my well being/life.I do find however that motorists in general will be really good late at night or without other traffic around, perhaps its a herd mentality

good story and a nice perspective. Matt C - don't let the bus driver get around you to cut you up. Come out from the kerb and force him/her to wait behind you. Cyclists need to realise that we can **control** the traffic around us by riding assertively and communicating. Most bad drivers don't even know they do the stuff they do - by, say, moving out at a narrowing and "taking the lane" you won't get passed dangerously. Turn around, say "thanks chief!" and let them pass when it is safe and they'll think they've done you a great favour rather having been **controlled**!!

100% agree.Well written and a great perspective.Plus, somewhat incredibly, FACTS!You should have words with the cretinous Andrea Leadsom. She is utterly pathetic too.

The most important point you have is that, "It was depressing to find a government minister relying so thoroughly on the lower reaches of his abdomen that he was holding two utterly contradictory views."That contradiction is pretty much the case for 100% of drivers.They regularly speed or chat on the phone but go absolutely MAD if a cyclist so much as crosses the white line at a red light.

(I am not advocating RLJing - I abhor it - but merely pointing to the irrational attitude of drivers.)

About Me

I'm a hefty, 6ft 5in Scot. I moved back to London in 2016 after four years of living and cycling in New York City. Despite my size, I have a nearly infallible method of making myself invisible. I put on an eye-catching helmet, pull on a high visibility jacket, reflective wristbands and trouser straps, get on a light blue touring bicycle and head off down the road. I'm suddenly so hard to see that two drivers have knocked me off because, they said, they didn't see me.
This blog is an effort to explain to some of the impatient motorists stuck behind me, puzzled friends and colleagues and - perhaps most of all myself - why being a cyclist has become almost as important a part of my identity as far more important things - my role as a husband, father, Christian and journalist. It seeks to do so by applying the principles of moral philosophy - which I studied for a year at university - and other intellectual disciplines to how I behave on my bike and how everyone uses roads.